Arrow Pointing Nowhere (6 page)

“I'm sure it has immense dignity and charm.”

“Nobody but a Fenway would live in it. At least I have one thing to be thankful for—my poor brother Cort never knew that the picture of old Fenbrook would be lost. He was very fond of these books. I can see him now, sitting in the library up there with Volume III on his knees. We had a project even then, and I looked forward to carrying it out—until now. There's not much point in it now. I wanted to write a little history of our family here—we're extinct in England—for the Historical Society. Of course the view of Fenbrook and Grandfather's description of it would have been the most important—the only important part of the thing. That's why I had the books sent down; I've retired from law practise, and I thought it would be a delightful way of spending my leisure.”

“It's tough, Mr. Fenway.”

“Well, now, Mr. Gamadge,” and Fenway, sitting back in his chair, looked at his guest with a smile, “you're to tell me what can have become of the view of Fenbrook.”

“Am I?” Gamadge returned the smile.

“That's my little problem. Mind you, I don't hope to get it back, because it may have vanished at any time in the last twenty years; I haven't looked for it since my brother died. But I should like a mind trained in these mysteries to tell me why on earth it and only it should have been torn out of the book, and what can have been done with it.”

Gamadge became grave. “I shouldn't in the least mind discussing the possibilities, but it wouldn't be an intelligent discussion unless we included all of them.”

“Of course, all of them.” Fenway looked surprised. “Why not?”

“My type of mind is a very aggravating one, you know; it pursues a question long after more comfortable minds are ready and willing to drop it. I may bore you.”

“Bore me? I venture to say that you are incapable of doing that, Mr. Gamadge.”

“Well, to make a beginning.” Gamadge looked down at the open book on his knees. “You saw the picture twenty years ago?”

“A little less than that. My brother was up at Fenbrook shortly before he died—very suddenly, of pneumonia—in the summer of 1923.”

“Where were the books kept?”

“In cases very much like these, in the Fenbrook library.”

“Not locked up?”

“No, we had nothing we thought valuable there; I mean to thieves.”

“When did they reach you here in New York?”

“They arrived on Thursday afternoon, the twenty-first. I opened the parcel there on that table, but I had no time to look at them until Friday evening, after dinner.”

“This young lady—Miss Grove—sent them down?”

“By express, with some others, on Tuesday. We don't of course use the station wagon now for such work. It only goes out for necessary shopping. Hilda, of course, was distressed when I called her up about the view; I had a first faint hope that it might have loosened, and that it would be found somewhere in the library. But it was torn out, that's obvious.”

“Miss Grove has looked for it?”

“She's looked everywhere. We don't go up there ourselves except in warm weather; we're conserving coal. The Dobsons—a very nice couple who have been with us a long time—keep part of the house warm for themselves and Hilda. It must be lonely for her.” Fenway's expression was doubtful. “But she insists not; she won't complain. She's a niece—or niece by marriage, rather—of my sister-in-law's friend and companion, Mrs. Grove; did I mention her before? My sister-in-law was badly injured on her trip here from France in 1940—a most terrible experience it all was. She is still unable to walk, but otherwise she's greatly improved. Mrs. Grove takes care of her; an admirable arrangement.”

“I should think it would be, if Mrs. Grove is an old friend.”

“Actually a school friend.”

Gamadge was again studying the place where the view of Fenbrook had been. He said: “The plate and the tissue guard were both removed; but of course if the plate were torn out the tissue guard would go with it. We may forget the disappearance of the guard. Our question is, why was the plate torn out? Well, there are certain more or less familiar reasons for removing illustrations from books; we might consider
them first. There is the nefarious process known as grangerizing, more politely known as enlarging.”

“I don't think I ever heard of it.”

“Since late in the eighteenth century it's been a hobby with certain persons who have plenty of leisure, like to handle books, and enjoy light manual labor. They feel they're creating something, and of course a grangerized set is unique; at the expense of many other books, out of which the illustrations have been ripped incontinent.”

“But who could possibly want a view of old Fenbrook for any such purpose as that?”

“I can't imagine, unless somebody else was inspired to write up the Fenway family.”

“I have my share of family conceit, I suppose,” said Fenway, smiling, “but even I don't think there's any such person. There are no Fenways left but myself, my daughter, and my cousin Mott. And my nephew. They are all out of the question.”

“And we may assume that the Historical Society isn't collecting for its archives—er—informally. Well, to proceed: people have been known to take pictures out of books in order to frame them and hang them on the wall, or to paste them on lamp shades and wastebaskets. I see on the lamp shade beside you, for instance, a rather charming woodcut portrait of—” Gamadge leaned forward—“of Theophrastus. If it wasn't once in a book, I'll eat it and the lamp shade too.”

Fenway started, looked guilty, and glanced sidelong at the portrait of Theophrastus. He said: “Caroline got the lamp shade for me at a decorator's. I assure you that nothing of the sort has been done with the view of Fenbrook.”

“Can you be sure? I'm sorry to say that I once found, among my grandmother's effects, a topographical view of old Albany behind a photograph—with whiskers—of my grandfather.”

“It's inconceivable that anyone connected with this family should have done anything of the kind.”

“Unlikely, I agree with you; and easy to disprove by a glance at the backs of the Fenbrook pictures. The superposing process wouldn't be a professional job. Grandfather Gamadge was clamped into place with two carpet tacks and a piece of mending tape. Well, now I'm going to shock you again. Children are known to tear or deface the pages of books; spill things on them. I say children, because older persons would confess the damage; but a young child might tear that page out; thereby not only protecting itself, but (according to child logic) making the damage non existent.”

Fenway did look shocked; he also looked uneasy. “The books were behind glass; no strange children had access to them, certainly no visiting small fry. And of course Caroline was incapable of treating a book in that way; like all of us, she took good care of her books. And if by some accident she had spoiled the picture, I can only assure you that she would have told me about it. She was not brought up,” and he raised his eyes to the portrait above the mantel, “quite as strictly as my generation was, you know; she had no fear of me. At the time—when I last saw the view, you know—she must have been eleven years old. Far too old… Oh, impossible.”

“Your nephew?”

“Alden wasn't here; he was with his mother in Europe.”

“Who dusted the books in those days, and who does it now?”

“Responsible persons then as now, who wouldn't dislodge a picture by accident, much less deface it and tear it out. I think the books are only dusted at long intervals; they're in presumably dustproof cases.”

“Who's been on the premises there in these nineteen years since you last saw the view, Mr. Fenway?”

“Old servants, myself, my daughter, my cousin Mott, and a great many innocent bystanders in the way of guests. Since 1940, in the summer and autumn, my sister-in-law, her son, Mrs. Grove, and Hilda. Oh—a young Mr. Craddock.”

“Relative?”

“Err—no. My nephew is not strong. Craddock more or less looks after him. Clever, intelligent fellow, newspaper fellow once. He's a convalescent himself, but a very active one!”

Gamadge asked: “Is it conceivable, since your brother was interested in this scheme of writing up the family—is it conceivable that he should have removed the picture—carefully, as he thought, and with the intention of having it replaced again—” Fenway was doggedly shaking his head, but Gamadge continued: “in order to show it to artists abroad, you know; to get the best opinions on reproducing it in color.”

Fenway said: “He would have consulted me; and he never took it abroad because he never went abroad again; he died here, of a virulent type of pneumonia, not many weeks after I last saw him looking at the book you are looking at now.” For Gamadge was turning its pages.

“Well, then!” Gamadge looked up to smile at his host. “We must conclude, if we are to assume that all your assumptions are correct, that the picture left its place in the book after it reached this house, Thursday a week ago.”

Fenway started upright in his chair. He looked deeply shocked. “Mr. Gamadge, put that out of your mind. That's impossible.”

“But the view is gone, and you reject all reasons for its having been torn out at Fenbrook.”

“What earthly reason could anybody in this house have had for tearing it out? I never dreamed of suggesting that the thing had happened
here
.”

“I suppose it's always easier to shift blame upon the past. But motive is easier to distinguish in the present, and there are distinguishable motives for the mutilation if it took place in this room. I needn't point out that there was opportunity; it lay unwrapped and unguarded on that table for more than twenty-four hours, accessible to the household. But perhaps I should except Mrs. Fenway?”

“My sister-in-law only comes downstairs on special occasions, in a chair, carried by two men.”

“We'll except her.” Gamadge put aside his cigar, and turned the pages of the book of views.

“We must except them all, Mr. Gamadge.”

Gamadge looked up at him. “If you say so and if you say so, we'll drop the whole thing.”

After a moment's silence Fenway said: “I beg your pardon; of course we won't. It's an academic discussion, no harm in it. I must abandon the personal point of view. Please go on, Mr. Gamadge.”

“There are only one or two points to be made. If the mutilation of the book occurred here and lately, it may have been done because somebody knew you'd put a value on the print, and is holding it for ransom. I mean you're to offer a reward, and the picture will be found.”

Fenway looked actually sick.

“But the reward wouldn't naturally be very great,” continued Gamadge, “hardly more than fifty dollars at most, I suppose. The person who would play such a trick as that on you would have to be very hard up.”

“And a petty criminal!”

“First offense, perhaps.”

“Nobody in the house, not one of the servants—but they're out of the question—need be reduced to such straits. They would come to me.”

“There's the ever-curious question of pride or vanity. I
can
steal, to beg I am ashamed.”

“Horrible.

“But you won't like me to suggest that the picture may have been torn from your family archives and destroyed to satisfy a personal grudge—against you or your clan.”

“If anybody is cherishing a grudge against me or my family, it's always been concealed very well.”

Gamadge closed the book of views. “May I take this home with me overnight, Mr. Fenway? I'd like to look at it more carefully. I'll bring it back when I bring you your Holmes.”

Fenway, recalled to his overpowering sense of obligation, assented almost eagerly. “Of course. Of course. But you really mustn't carry all these books—five, Mr. Gamadge, counting your own!”

“I can manage them very well, if I may have a piece of that wrapping paper, and a length of that string.”

Gamadge made a neat bundle, but he did not include
Men Working
; when he and Fenway left the library, he had it under his arm.

T
HE UPPER HALL,
like the lower one, was high and heavily corniced, and ended at the rear with a glassed door; Gamadge supposed that these doors concealed service stairways and landings. He followed his host over sound-absorbent carpeting to the large sitting room which occupied two-thirds of the house frontage, and which contained six people; but only five of them looked up as the two came in. The sixth, a big young man with thick blond hair, sat hunched at a table between the west windows, pencil in hand and eyes fixed on a paper game, until his companion—another young man, but a thin and active one—rose and touched him on the arm. Then he too got up, and stood vaguely and amiably smiling.